We were Younger
by Arashi no Seirei
Summary: Ending of Episode 5 - Max's POV as she struggles to make the final choice: forced to face her responsibilities, she tries to grasp the true meaning of the past few days and to come to terms with pain, insecurity and her own conflicted feelings. (Obviously, SPOILERS for episode 5)
1. Chapter 1

_Let's say sunshine for everyone,_  
 _but as far as I can remember we've been migratory animals_  
 _living under changing weather._

 _-"Obstacles", Syd Matters -_

* * *

A blue butterfly.

On the glossy film of the picture its image is still; no longer a broken flight, unreliable and unpredictable, but movement frozen in time.

In this form I'd even be able to hold it forever in my hands without any risk of damaging its frail wings: an istant between my fingers, safe for all eternity.

And yet I don't bother shielding it from the storm.

My heart is swollen. My cheeks are wet but my eyes are surprisingly dry. It's just rain: the sky is crying in my stead and I let its tears stream down my face, bringing to me the smell of the raging sky and sea.

* * *

A shot from a camera – the easiest way to _capture_ a butterfly.

Its movement is slow, careless, always seemingly within reach, defenseless and unknowing. But try reaching out for it – it'll never be where you anticipated. You'll find yourself hunting the air.

I know.

I tried so many times, over and over... sometimes I felt the whisper of wings on the back on my hand or on the tip of my fingers: illusion of control, nothing more. My hand tightened into an empty fist.

In my typical clumsiness I admire the flight of the butterfly: not smooth, it's nonetheless as pure as Chaos which knows no choice, reason, success, failure and regret. Beautiful and dreadful at the same time.

Tragic.

Chaos would have effortlessly solved all my drama – and that of everybody else – as carelessly as that haunting blue butterfly wanders about. It always does.

After all "Chaos is fair" isn't it? Then "why so serious", right?

There may be a point in drifting away willingly on the undefinable flow of life: one thing I learnt is that sparing some pain may cause a new one, even to someone else, and the right behaviour is like in a picture the subject in focus, changing depending on the depth of field. But unfortunately human awareness is so much more limited than a photographic objective: it can't focus to infinity.

Some of the choices I made I wouldn't repeat.

Many others backfired.

Maybe all of them have just been presumptuous.

I made a typical human mistake... for the first time in my life I'm quite trendy; I wish I could blame my time-rewinding power but it could happen to anyone. To live backwards.

Take Chloe... she could write a tourist guide of her own past: she's been living there for the last five years. ...never mind, scratch that tourist guide idea: thinking again she got lost in it; she started walking in circles, constantly missing the way out.

* * *

Again I lower my eyes to the picture.

Its edges keep waving and flapping in the wind as if the butterfly were begging me to finally let go, to return its freedom and the role I stole from it the moment I tried to straighten its flight.

I tighten my grip.

Not yet.

I look behind my shoulder.

You look sufficiently calm, considering everything... the huge tornado raging in front of us... and the last choice you asked me to make.

Yes, the last one – at least counting on my powers. Of this I'm sure.

No matter what I choose, never again I shall return to the past.

 _No matter what you choose, I know you'll make the right decision._

Chloe... you called me the Time Master and appointed yourself as my sidekick; you said my powers were changing me and that I'm not so chickenshit anymore, but... actually I'm only ever been _so fucking scared_... so much that I walked back a thousand times: that little confidence I had was born of this new ability to erase my errors and not the gut to face them.

Hero my ass.

If this story has a hero, it's you and not me. An "everyday hero"... I should've submitted a picture of you to the contest. I'm still so fucking scared even now... even knowing for certain that I am the only person in a five mile radius who'll live on no matter what.

But I can go back, one last time, and reset everything.

A segment lived through so many times I can now perfectly re-enact even without rewinding.

The chiaroscuro, the selfie... the Daguerreian Process.

 _...fuck you_ Mr. Jefferson.

* * *

A blue butterfly.

Waiting for the gunshot, deafening in the enclosed space, without even a chance to meet again, to let you know I'm back.

 _Idiot._

My mistake too: I should've done it earlier.

 _A chickenshit idiot._

If I had known, I wouldn't have let a whole month go by.

 _If I had known..._

Fuck it, Maxine... you're even living in the past of the past! Will you ever learn?!

It's the flight of the butterfly: it doesn't allow any prevision. You are insignificant. Trust the butterfly: it's not your place to make this kind of decisions, do you not understand?

I can't win, can I? Whatever my choice, I'll be losing something; it will cause me excruciating pain and others too.

There's no way out... at least I cannot see it! Chloe, is this how you've been feeling for the past five years?

There is no doe to direct me now... where has she gone? It's the end of the world and I'm alone.

No, actually not alone. Chloe... but I can't ask you to decide for me even if I've always felt so much more of a child compared to you: I've always felt like you were so much older than me, even though we are just one year apart; maybe you're not wise, actually definitely not... but braver and bolder for sure, even in making foolish decisions. This is your greatest strenght as much as your greatest weakness: not overthinking things too much... though in your case it's probably fair to say underthinking.

The exact opposite of me.

We are train rails: we are paired, but travel dinstinct and straight. And parallel lines such as those do not intersect, though are said to meet at infinity. It looks like our destiny is not to have one single point in common: in whatever moment in time I find myself, you are denied existence. Should I just pray for that point to infinity to exist in the progressively logic-defying geometry of this reality?

But what if mathematicians tried to move forward on the rails, as tightrope walkers, like we did? Would they change the axiom? "Parallel lines are ever connected, if only those walking upon them reach out to one another. To infinity."

I understand now that you at least have learnt something from all this, while I struggle to even grasp the point of the lecture...

It's about growing up, isn't it?

Making choices and taking responsibility... without a guide, without the option of rewinding.

Without the actual _desire_ of rewinding. Turning pain into fuel for personal growth.

You made it, didn't you? Maybe the tourist guide idea wasn't such a bad one, I could use it right now: in the End you finally found the way out.

You took responsibility for you own mistakes, and to other people you attributed some merits, not just faults. Step _father_... not another mocking and vulgar nickname. You choked on that word; I noticed you know, despite the roaring storm.

I just witnessed you growing about five years in a few rain-soaked seconds – even my power to time travel pales in comparison.

You faced your own tornado. You could have still avoided to look at it, avoided to hand me this goddamn photograph.

But you did.

You even look somewhat peaceful for once – just another uncomprehensible paradox at the end of this surreal experience, I guess.

* * *

Now it's my turn. Time's up.

 _Forgive me, Chloe..._


	2. Chapter 2

_Someday we will foresee obstacles through the blizzard._

 _We played hide and seek in waterfalls._  
 _We were younger._

 _-"Obstacles", Syd Matters -_

* * *

The little picture writhes between my fingers and I allow my eyes to focus on it. Maybe I hoped the water pouring from the sky had made it unusable, but not even the rain comes to my aid in taking the necessity of this decision away from my hands.

Instead, the semi-rigid polaroid film isn't affected at all, because the noise it makes in ripping is quite sharp, not the soft one of soaked paper.

Once I open my fingers the twin fragments fly away as butterfly wings, but under the steady force of the wind the flight is straight for once, without hesitations; they are carried far away, soon lost into the storm.

* * *

I realize it wasn't really a choice: the alternative decision would simply not be so alternative after all – a tail-biting snake.

Going back one more time? To live again in the past – and I mean literally – in order to deny my choices when there has been a time I considered them correct? To keep on being just a frightened child?

\- Not anymore.

The vision of this Ending manifested itself to me way before my powers did: those came when I wished I could save you. And the decisions I made, all of them with no exception, I made them because I wanted to shield you from pain.

The doe is not around because she already brought me in this exact place what seems like an eternity ago; I almost forgot: she showed me the way through the storm even before we met again. You may be the reason behind my decisions, but not the cause of their outcomes.

It's my right to fail, and I denied myself that. And this is not about my powers – it's me.

That picture I ripped in the school bathroom... I destroyed it because overthinking led to second-guessing, to believe it was worthless; but when I took the shot I remember I hadn't felt that way. I was leery to face a possible rejection, other people's judgement...

You suggested I borrowed Rachel's clothes and I feared you'd compare the two of us, finding me lacking. But it was I who made such comparison.

It was I who kept finding me lacking.

But I remember you saying I can afford to take chances, whenever and whatever I want to try...

I'm starting to think you put the picture in my hands to see how far I'd be willing to go, if I'd have braved to take a risk, to face responsibility for once. Another dare, like that time in your bedroom?

And like that time in your bedroom, when you backed away at the slightest contact of my lips on your own, again I fear I may have dared way too much.

But facing the tornado raging in the small bay, connecting sky and sea, though I'm scared shitless about what's to happen I still have no regrets. It doesn't even cross my mind to rewind up to the point to have that goddamn butterfly back in my hands.

I think I've learnt my lesson.

The past is in the past: if all this is the outcome of my wish to exist for _you_ , to be here for _you_ , then maybe it was the rest of our world, not you, to be marked for death even before the start.

Is this what Jefferson meant with "loss of innocence"?

After all even a lighthouse, a universal symbol of safety through raging weather, is a constant cycle of light and darkness.

I guess if one could frame a life, the resulting picture would be a beautiful chiaroscuro...

* * *

I tried to strighten the chaotic flight of a butterfly. Maybe I'm doomed to failure, but I think I'm going to keep trying.

I know I'm bound to make mistakes; then I will simply accept the past and the responsibility it brings me.

But I swear I will always keep going _forward_.


End file.
